I was just writing a post on how long it takes me to get feedback on my work when this update came to my attention. You might remember that the other day I wrote a post about one of the longest running vote circles on Steem with 8-10 accounts taking out hundreds of thousands in rewards from the pool.
Steemreports appears down so I am going to have to go a bit more old-school and skip the charts and instead take the grabs from:
https://steemworld.org/@sweetsssj
What you will find is lot of votes on 8 accounts:
and curation rewards from 8 accounts:
But what you might not have been paying attention to is what has been happening since I posted.
And that looks like this:
For a closer look:
If you are wondering who has been downvoting this circle, that would be @ocdb, and they have been spending their 2.5 downvotes a day in an attempt to break up this circle.
Who knows how long that could take...
oh. I do.
If we look at the voting of @Sweetsssj in the last 24 hours, it looks like this:
Getting somewhat better and, those 8 accounts who have mostly posted in the last 24 hours haven't been voting on. I will take that as an early victory on voting behavior.
Now, these posts weren't even taken to zero but as I have predicted, as long as they are taken down below the 50% curation return, it is enough to force a change to maximize the vote and, what a surprise, it only took a coupe rounds of downvotes to make the shift to a new model of maximization.
However, there is still likely a lot of room for improvement but the problem is that Sweetsss likely doesn't spend much time reading on Steem and, 800K of her voting stake is delegated to her meaning, she can't allocate it to something like @ocdb or @curangel (the new curation initiative) to earn off and spread the Steem from the pool further. What she should probably do is follow a curation trail so that she can still earn and also actually help to build the platform.
But, what about the other accounts she supports?
Well, perhaps it is time to stand on their own two feet and after a couple years of being on the platform, they should have a pretty deep social network - if they had ever commented that is. In ,my opinion, there has been far too much extraction already and from now on, the voting behavior of Sweetsss should be closely monitored as old habits die hard.
But the first lesson is, old habits can die on #newsteem.
The second lesson is that this should serve as evidence that the downvoting changes can make a difference if used well.
The third lesson?
That is pretty obvious isn't it? It is a warning to the other circles that unless they start opening up their curation habits to drive value into the community instead of a narrow sliver of users, there are initiatives and people like @ocdb, @curangel, @acidyo and @theycallmedan that are going to target them in various ways. The bigger drive should be swelling from the community though, and I hope that everyone is using their votes to improve the platform by directing Steem to those who both value it, and will use it to improve Steem further in various ways.
So far, the changes that have happened with the latest EIP have completely shifted the way many people use the platform and again as I have mentioned, brought in more randomization and less clear pathways for maximization. This should in time leak Steem into corners that were previously dry and encourage more initiatives to form. The goal should be that the "maximization of earnings" model is through creation and curation.
Lastly, I would like to thank two accounts, @ocdb for stepping up to tackle this and @sweetsssj for changing behavior without drama. For the latter, I really hope that she will spend more effort using one of the largest stakes on the platform to do what helps. I am sure that there are going to be more people than me watching what these accounts do next and who knows, perhaps they will find a way to redeem themselves by doing something great.
I am also quite confident that this is just the first of the voting rings to be dismantled.
#newsteem on!
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
I think you have a personal angst and that is fine if a bit weak.
Moving on.
We all know that delegating to bidbots is proxy self-voting for ROI. Are OCDB and other bid bots going to stand the moral high ground - blacklisting etc. and pretend as if the large majority of active SP in the hands of bid bots is fine?
If you're going to be pedantic, then at-least be consistent with your moral standpoint. You are participating in equivocal behaviour whether you know it or not by seeking above par (and most importantly non-proof-of-brain (for which the system was intended)) returns by delegating your stake to bidbots.
Nice to see you again after 23 days of no comments. Considering you post every day thereabouts and you actually get a couple commentators that very rarely get a reply, it says something. From what I can see, you are the only real content producer from that group and, you are actually a decent writer.
these 5 accounts posted 8 minutes apart:
Then a day earlier these ones 13 minutes apart.
You are very likely smart enough, what are the chances 2 days in a row? Not only that, the accounts aren't all the same out of the group of 5 but, 7 are represented.
1.amylee
2.maysun
3.sherrychan
4.helgachen
5.thecatfiles
6.angelatang
7.fergi
The only one missing is you.
Your posts are consistently out of sync with the other 7. Not "family"? You are the outlier from the 8 and I noticed that @ocdb chose to downvote less on you for some reason.
On a side note, @ocdb has a whitelist only with 3000+ names that have been manually curated for over two years of searching for content producers who proved that they could write at least one decent post. Most of them newcomers with low rep.
I have no angst, but this circle (there were more in it before posting nonsense) has taken out how much over the last 1.5 years? Should I get someone to do the math? And after sweetsssj was caught selling votes via memo with a delegation from @ned meant to aid community distribution, I think it is time that there was a little bit more input from that Steem Power and a little less extraction.
Let's cut to the chase.
You delegate to a profit centred enterprise where Proof of Brain is not enacted by each of the members of the collection of the stakeholders for which the enterprise enacts power on their behalf. Despite this, the "investors" receive passive return for not participating in any side of the Proof of Brain mechanism. This is not how Steem is intended to work.
The system was designed such that curation is absolutely integral to the end goal of finding what is valuable, and what is not. If you delegate to a bot and subsequently "extract" a return higher than what manual curation would yield, then the idea of value contribution (both from a curators perspective and a creators perspective) is effectively null.
It matters that you care about community aid, but your actions do not represent that.
You consistently appeal to ad-hominem (yes, a person's behaviour on the blockchain counts), while offering no rebuttal on your own morally fickle behaviour. You can disguise it in a plethora of ways but at the end of the day, you are contributing to the same result as the people you voice concern over.
Don't be a hypocrite. Sssj had power delegated to her with no rules attached. She never advertised a deal or any agreement to vote for those who sent memos. If anything, she enacted proof of brain and voted on the posts manually. The memos bid on her attention and she gave attention to the highest bidder. If you believe bid bots do any bit of good on this platform (clearly you do as the majority of your stake is delegated to one), then you wouldn't take that opportunistic stance to make unsubstantiated (and hypocritical) claims about how she ran her bid bot.
I agree which is why, I wrote in the post above:
But, due to the last 2.5 years on the platform where this was not happening and due to those who benefited heavily from the start but chose not to distribute, the goal is not here yet and without change, it will never be within reach. This is change.
It is a question of resource allocation. Do I let those who pillage take the Steem for themselves in ever increasingly powerful circles or for extraction, or do I play the long game? After a long time publicly and loudly expressing my views against bidbots, I chose to help develop one that is a steppingstone to something better. Whitelisted and filled with creatives, non-profit so it can maximize returns to both buyers and delegators and, one that is still looking toward a maximization through content and curation. And, I have openly talked of my involvement in all of this many times and in many ways.
So, while you may not agree with what I do, my investment into the community is consistently going up.
The results are far from in, but since I have spent a great deal of time over the last 2 years advocating for more randomization of outcome, things are finally moving in that direction. The vote stability that you and your circle have been living with for however long is hopefully coming to an end and then, you like most other people will have to compete for attention and attract actual support.
As you stated:
I agree, character matters a great deal and I think that since the vast majority of my Steem earnings are community derived, my character on this blockchain and similarly in real life stays solid. I do not run and I understand there are consequences to my actions, just as there are consequences to the actions of others.
和聪明人说话应该简单一些，我们打开天窗说亮话
@honeybee, @sweetsssj You're right
Vote selling is economically equivalent to self voting/circle jerking etc. Fully self voting takes 100% of the voting rewards and puts it in the stakeholders pocket. Vote selling takes 100% of the voting rewards and distributes it between the between the stakeholder, bid bot owner and vote buyer, the latter 2 arguably even less deserving than the stakeholder. Vote selling arguably does my damage as it messes with trending in the process of siphoning money out the back door, the others are just the latter.
OCDB happens to be ran at 0 profit (including curation I think), so the owners don't get anything from it. But you're also right that it does just as much harm to the system irrespective of it's altruism. We all pay the price when OCDB kicks up 1400-2200 Steem a day to freedom, regardless of whether it takes a cut. It all contributes to content indifferent voting that undermines proof of brain.
And I'm sure you're also smart enough to know that blacklists/whitelists don't do shit. Either they're just empty virtue signalling and don't increase standards at all, or they actually increase standards and lose business to other voting bots with lower standards.
Pre HF21 when curation was 25%, curve was linear and there were no free downvotes, fighting against this was futile. Why would I or anyone spend voting mana downvoting abusers when it just meant the majority of the money reclaimed into the pool will go to other abusers? The only rational move other than selling the investment entirely is to join in on the abuse. And the common knowledge of this prevented the system from self correcting. To put it bluntly, the economic incentives pre HF21 were fucking retarded. And sticking to them for over 2 years was doubly retarded.
But here's the thing:
With curation bumped up to 50%, 25% free downvotes and the slightly superlinear curve, things are very different. Sure 50% is not as high as 100%, but with all the downvotes floating around that will disproportionally target abuse, as well as middle men needing a cut too, there's not that much wiggle room for this kind of abuse anymore. Hiding your votes is also more difficult because if they're too small you just get taxed by the curve. It's been less than a week and bid bots are really feeling the pinch. Some of the biggest ones are packing up shop and pivoting to curation https://steemit.com/smartsteem/@smartsteem/new-feature-request-a-curation-review-by-burning-steem-and-sbd. They're also using their downvotes to fight abuse, similar to OCDB (who have told me they're not going to be doing this bid bot shit for much longer either)
Similarly a lot of self voters like me who felt they had no choice back then have recognized that it's no longer futile against abuse and have turned to 100% honest curation and using every bit of free downvote power we can to put a stop to content indifferent voting behavior (circle jerks, vote sellers etc).
We would like your help. I would like your help. For the first time in Steem's history we have a sensible (but admittedly crude and can easily be improved) set of economic incentives that doesn't punish honest curators the most. If we win, we can implement a largely honest curation norm on here where most people settle for 50% curation rewards and keep each other in check from stepping out of line and being greedy.
Have a look around you and see which way the wind is blowing. OCDB is already up your ass, you can try to hide in other voting circles, sell your votes, or you can step up and join me and fight for the integrity of the platform. 50% returns is pretty nice, more if you curate well. No drama, no hassle, just a very fun empowering feeling curating for what's deserving and fucking over what's not.
朋友，和我并肩作战吧！I could really use your help
I have been the recipient of down votes because as you know, proof of brain does not cross the mind of people who support content indifferent schemes and now it is clear, it works both ways - voting as well as down voting.
I do not speak on behalf of anyone but myself and I simply point out the hypocrisy of selling votes, undermining proof of brain and then using delegate power to content indifferent down vote.
I support proof of brain and 100% honest duration. I do not support those who cower behind charitable schemes who clearly do benefit from running bid bots. A cursory look at the op, ocdb, acidyo and a few others will show there is pretty much a voting circle happening there too.
If we are to implement 100% curation, then I cannot support anyone who participates in as you say content indifferent voting. If we want to fight this together, then a consistent line of logic must be followed, no exceptions.
Those who delegate to bid bots and rent seek should not receieve honest curation. Same goes for anyone who runs a bid bot.
I will contact you to speak about this privately if you let me know how to contact you.
I agree with pretty much everything you say
Even if a bid bot operator does not take any fee, he is still contributing to 100% content indifferent voting behavior. All that money is then extracted from the system and passed onto the sellers. The damage is the same whether the intermediary takes a cut or not.
Now it use to be pre HF21 that stakeholders would only make a quarter as much curating honestly as they would abusing (vote selling, circle jerking, self voting etc). No surprise pretty much all active stake ended up doing it and completely undermined the entire POB system.
Now with the new incentives in place, curation is a healthy 50%, and with all the free downvotes floating around, it's probably better just to vote honestly and help fight abuse.
Acid has already told me he plans to go full curation in the near future. I believe him. Smartsteem is making a move in that direction too, and will attempt to do that for smartmarket as well. That's ballpark 20m SP converting to curation from content indifferent behavior (actual numbers will vary of course, but it's definitely something.)
Please play a part in honest curation now. If most people settled for 50% returns from honest curation, it actually benefits us all the most. And from how things are looking, we're heading in that direction.
See if you can convince @sweetsssj to give it a chance and do the same. Fight against abuse like vote selling and other content indifferent behavior like I do. If we're no longer abusing the system, why should other people get to?
It's been less than 2 weeks but things are looking palpably better. Persuade your circle in playing a bigger part. And if we can install a broadly honest set of voting behaviors platform wide, over time I believe it'll be reflected in the Steem price.
I have a discord. tarazkp there too.
But, you are welcome to talk here too.
Nicely said.
I have been getting rekt with downvotes
#oldsteem
https://steemit.com/@ssjsasha/comments
I agree. I reported similar cases to @steemcleaners.
Everything liquid straight out to bittrex -
Yep, and still a few votes heading through to the circle...
Be interesting to see if they start powering down and selling; that'd be the goal I guess. If they're just selling dividends we'll have to downvote them forever, but if they get rid of the principal, the problem goes away.
Yep, most are powering down 7/8. Hopefully to nothing. Honeybee commented above and I think those two comments are the equivalent of all others put together. I would rather all the Steem of these types to be liquid on market so it it can go into the hands of people who care at least a little. Many, many hundreds of thousands Steem over the years, and likely millions of dollars... still not enough.
Good to see that she is changing her behavior. Now onto the biggest fish. When will someone tackle Haejin? I am a guy on the sidelines since I have a very demanding full time job, but if someone coordinates an effort, I will join.
Blocktrades has already been taking rounds at him :)
nice. :)
It is a process in my opinion and it requires a normalization of it.
Haejin is not the biggest fish. He's just a stand-in for the one elephant in the room. Hint: that person controls at least 3.8 million SP. @ocdb is already bigger than him. What I'm hoping is that other curation projects will grow to a similar size, which is when the largest leeches can be taken down. I will gladly delegate all I've got if I get to see that.
No, not by any means, but definitely one of the more well known ones by their attitude. His sponsor is the one that fuels his fire. I assume you are referring to him.
'and @sweetsssj for changing behavior without drama. For the latter, I really hope that she will spend more effort using one of the largest stakes on the platform to do what helps.'
That was downright decent of you to thank her as well. I second that.
I will keep an eye for a very long time to come, a should many others. :)
this is such a pleasure to read :))
Very interesting.. any information why sweet did stop posting eventually?
Dunno. I never read her posts as they were very boring from my perspective and not my thing at all.
deleted
might have been a third person involved
Dear @tarazkp
I'm writing to you because friend of mine suggested that you may be able to help me and guide through difficult time.
Few hours I uploaded publication OPEN LETTER TO WHALES: please be mindfull with your MASS-DOWNVOTES before it's to late" which has been downvoted to zero by few powerful accounts (berniesanders and few others).
I never got involved into any flag wars and being downvoted by over 600k SP for reasons I don't understand seem to be very brutal and discouraging to me.
Right now my publication isn't even being displayed any more and I never felt so discouraged to continue my efforts on Steem blockchain.
I hope you do not mind this comment. I'm fully aware that it isn't related to your subject and I'm not sure if there is anything you could do to help my case. I'm not sure what anyone can do in such a situation.
ps. It seem that HF21 provided us with excellent ways of fighting with different abuses, except of the worst one of all - downvoting abuse. I wonder if there is anything that could be done to stop users like bernie.
Yours,
Piotr
Firstly, it is being displayed everywhere except on the steemit.com interface as most others don't hide posts.
No idea why but, at a quick read it is complaining about whales not doing anything when many actually are. The other day I was dragged onto a post complaining about getting downvoted and a group of people defending the poster... it took me 30 seconds to find that they are plagiarising and spinning content.
Because of the incessant memo spam you send, you have also made yourself somewhat of a target and there is a consequence to getting attention.There are many aspects to this space that go over people's heads as they focus on the bits they think are important. But, it is an attention economy and one has to recognize that other people's attention might be focusing on something different than your own.
At the end of the day, it is one post that has got downvoted, not too bad. For anyone who has been here long enough and built up some kind of "reputation", downvotes are common enough.
Suck it up or play it up. it is up to you.
Hi @tarazkp
Thanks for dropping by.
Please see who downvoted my post. This did not happen until the many comments came complaining about him.
I do not think my post (or memos) is the problem here.
I didn't really complain about whales for not doing anything when many actually are. I was pointing out lack of warning and lack of information why downvoted user has been flagged. I'm simply speaking out loud pointing at real and existing problem.
ps. Of course I will suck it up and move on. There isn't much more I could do.
Cheers
Piotr
If you sat on a street corner and sold heroin, you are likely to attract addicts - and this is similar to many of these kinds of posts. Complain, you will attract those who like to complain and feel supported in their viewpoint. Be positive and - you are likely to attract complainers who want to spread their view point. No win for positivity, except from those who are looking long and aiming to develop something healthy.
You can't attract free Upvotes, no matter how positive you play. The reason is super simple, there are no 'free' upvotes.
It really seems like he got trolled with that downvotes, that B.S. guy is having a great time with downvotes and his 6 accounts. This is also a good example to think about. I will not mention him with his full @bs name here, because I don't wanna be the next target. Batman is coming for all of us.
Late thank you for your reply @tarazkp
I want you to know that I really appreciate your time and your comments
Yours, Piotr
That is the reason for your downvotes!
@tarazkp @crypto.piotr @berniesanders
That insane guy @kawaiicrush resteemed you before he downvotes me and bernie ~100 times. All his activities are doomed, he is nasty and flamy -_-#
It's all about that comment section: https://steempeak.com/@steemitblog/steemit-com-and-nodes-operational
...... insane ..... need !BEER
Late thank you for your comment @manniman
Go fuck yourself. You defend this sack of shit. And it wasn't my fault "bernie" downvoted this. I don't control what he does. He downvoted it because he downvotes anyone who questions his authority. Nothing more and nothing less.
Since you defend a man who harasses women and children.. as well as death threats people you are on my shit list.
Congrats moron!
Your obsession with @berniesanders is pathetic. Get a life.
You are loud and aggressive, I'm not impressed so far - you're wasting your energy on me.
Steem On..
Get along nicely with the changes and adapt as per the need of the day.
Adaption will hopefully mean moving toward improvement for the ecosystem.
Adapting always implies.making the ecosystem better and better to survive and live
It's nice to see this.
It will be interesting to see going forward what's considered a circle jerk and what's considered supporting those that helped you. I've had a handful of people that have supported me while I've grown on Steem and they've supported me.
I'm not too worried about it, because I can see there are going to be clear cut circle jerks that are taken down with the new downvotes, but have a feeling that some will cause drama as it may not be as cut and dry.
Either way I think splitting up these large accounts from constantly voting for eachother will be, in the long term, better for all on Steem.
I think there is agoing to be a lot of blur and, it is going to depend on how narrow and how high it is. There is a difference in this one and, at least half of these accounts appear to be one person. For example:
these were all posted within 8 minutes of each other. What are the chances?
Yeah I wasn't saying I disagree as this one was clear cut and the votes are huge.
Another thing that will make a large difference is if you're upvoting your "circle" for a few Steem or tens or hundreds of Steem as well.
I am not convinced. It is demonstrable that the attention of the masses is fickle indeed, and a provable mechanism to survive that attention is to make a show of bending to their will, but only until that attention moves on.
Time will tell.
Thanks!
Well, I have been keeping an eye on it for months already, just had no way to do much about it. I will keep, keeping an eye on it well into the future.
might start my actifit steem distribution hub up again :)
At least it goes out to more than 3 people :D
Any idea if those 8 accounts are hers as well, or under her control?
Posted using Partiko Android
5 of them posted within 8 minutes with the same format, so I would say that at least they are one person.
deleted
Is Ned still delegating to Sweetsssj? Thanks to @ocdb and everyone involved for their work combating this. I would love a way of delegating my downvotes to those who are fight the good fight.
Nah, it is hendrikdegrote and systema, I have no idea why.
While not quite the same, look into becoming a @curangel curator.
Thank you for that. I'll check into that.
No problem.
https://steemit.com/curangel/@curangel/announcing-the-curangel-project-curation-serving-everyone
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https://steemit.com/job/@olivercuico/do-you-speak-mandarin-and-english-and-looking-for-a-job-in-manila